— A cloudless day had overcome the desert, the sun harsh and cruel as it beat down onto the sands below. It was a harsh heat that Sweetteeth was finding herself getting accustomed too— her scrawny frame hauling itself closer and closer to the epicenter of the Sanguine Ruins territory. It was obvious that she was exhausted, ribs visible, eyes half lidded and her breathing hardly above a scratchy rasp— parched —and yet she moved forward. Her pale pink eyes still showed a certain clarity, her cracked and dry paw pads did not falter, her tail lashed behind her with a certain vitality despite her less than favorable appearance. Upon her maw was that of a crooked smile, one belonging to a creature who was sure she was walking into the pits of hell itself and yet at the same time... seemed to not care, if not enjoy it. White form pausing, she rasped, hacking to the side before gasping for a breath of hot air.

The Sanguine Ruins was not a typical habitat for creatures she mused, not one any within their right minds may willingly go to join, but here she was— following a few rumours, discussion ends and sand swept trails, making her way into the heart of the desert to do just that. It was either see if they existed after all, or die and descend to hell in the easiest way possible. She chuckled at the thought, taking a moment to regain some energy, and once again began to truck her way into the desert. The heat at her back and her paws was almost a comfort at this point, but she'd be even more foolish still to say she'd deny a drink at this point. Silently, she continued on, until she caught a glimpse of something in the distance, and stopped. Her ears perked forward, and squinting, she straightened to determine what it was she was looking at.

"OI! You a mirage or alive over there?" she called out, voice raspy with good humour. She was either yelling at nothing, or what she had come here to find, after all.

Was he a mirage? That depended on what form Dantalion took - outside of a physical, stable body his appearance would often vary, as though he were constantly changing his wardrobe. Sure, the only identifying features the demon typically held were his seals and his energy, but that was about it. Besides, often those forms were so... strange that he supposed he could be passed off as a mere illusion or, as the female had called him, a mirage. However now, he was just a plain old black dog, though if one cared to really look, there were tiny details that seemed to be constantly changing about him, be it the shade of pale blue his eyes happened to be or the way his eyes would shift from sunken and hollow to - well, something a little more healthy-looking. Another thing that wouldn't change was the fact that he just looked kind of... dead. Which made sense, since his body had quite literally been revived by his own slimy, clawed hands before being put to use.

It was rather convenient that he had found a vessel so well-suited for the desert. Most animals with thick fur just wouldn't do well in the desert, with the constant sweltering heat. "The pits of hell itself" was a real funny way to describe the Ruins, as the third tier himself had hailed from such a place and he could in fact vouch that Hell was a hot, miserable place. There was no A.C. or fans, just fire and brimstone and suffering. It got boring after several thousand years. Dante regarded the blurry dot on the horizon with such an uninterested stare, choosing to saunter forward rather than raise his hoarse, gravelly voice just to grace the stranger with a response. "Alive is a questionable term," he began once he was close enough, a hint of humor in his voice. "I can assure you that I am no mirage." He eyed her up and down, the corners of his lips unturned for a brief moment before quickly reverting into a tight-lipped frown. "And, might I mention, you're trespassing, so you best state your name and your business here." He wouldn't bother to threaten her like he knew his clanmates would have - he assumed she knew what would come to her if he discovered that she was just here to loiter.

— She watched with general interest as the dot on the horizon got closer and closer, the shadowy figure eventually taking a more solid shape, the haze of the heat not interfering with the reality of the matter at hand. When he was close enough to respond, the feline chuckled, an awful raspy sound as she drew back her lips into a tight smile. Her eyes were half lidded, vibrant and filled with life if not tired looking, her whiskers crooked, her fur slightly ragged. She took looked as if she had become a reanimated corpse— but the life in her veins was obvious enough.

"Aye, I feel like I'm the living dead myself right now with this sweltering heat." she mused, sitting herself down proper. Despite the casual tone she used for conversation, her body movements made it clear she was treating the stranger with an air of respect as she offered all strangers until it was proven they didn't deserve it. Her eyes remained focused on him, her pointed ears flicked forward, her lopsided grin showing no malice as yellowing teeth once again flashed in good humour. "An' I'm well aware. Ain't going to beat around the bush, names Sweetteeth an' I've heard stories of this place. Hell on earth. I want to be part of that." she rasped, voice coarse, a tremor building that couldn't hide her excitement over finding physical proof of the very place she had been searching for.

"I'm not much to look at at the moment," the albino femme mused, inspecting her claws and tugging at some tangled fur that had gotten ensnared within, "but that's travellin' a desert when ya ain't used to it if I've ever said so." She rasped with a smirk, cocking one imaginary brow up into the air as she looked at the black hound before her. How corpse like he was as well, it sent shivers down her spine! But oh how Sweetteeth loved it and the look nonetheless.

It seemed that they were both in awful states of disrepair, the duke of Hell would note, a slight, dry laugh rising in his hollowed chest. It was like looking into a mirror - well, not exactly, obviously, as she was smaller than he along with many other details, but they were both just... disheveled, to put it gently. It wasn't like it mattered much, just an observation he was making, squinting at Sweetteeth through his own hazey glare, barely able to make sense of her. He relied more on the energy she gave off and the tone of voice, ears angled forward to listen for the same creaking of bones, smell of sickly flesh, search for the smell of rotting insides such as his own. She was very clearly alive, not merely a puppet that would collapse back into its decaying state of death once he finally abandoned it. It was almost nice to have someone to relate to. She was no threat, as he could tell by her less than intimidating form and her casual tone, posture betraying a sense of respect the duke of Hell found worthy of a curt laugh.

Hell on earth - again, he laughed. "I guess that is not too far off." He ignored her apparent excitement to be here, as he didn't quite care that she had found some mystical land depicted only in tales that must have been exaggerated somehow. It may have been his temporary home, but he didn't find it all that interesting. It was a bunch of sand and one of the seven wonders of the world, with some ornery creatures pissing all over it. A crude description, but what more would one need to hear? Regardless, it was his job to welcome a joiner, even if he wasn't the most friendly being, and it wasn't like he would turn her around and tell her to find somewhere less... desert-y. "Welcome to Sanguine Ruins, then. You may call me Dantalion." Her next words had him taking another look at her, still unclear as though he were looking through a heavily fogged window, failing to quite see what she was going on about. "You'll get used to it." If she really planned on staying, it wouldn't take long for the blistering heat to become nothing but a minute detail of her life, pawpads no longer burnt by the hot sand, body no longer immediately exhausted by even the slightest of movements. Water was readily available even if her tolerance for the heat did not grow, so he didn't see much of a problem.

”Aw, hell on Earth’s a bit harsh, don’t you think?” the Queen’s voice sounded as she sidled over, coming to stand next to Dante as she raised blue eyes to fix on Sweetteeth’s face. Damn, this girl was a mess. With her tangled fur, and tired, lidded eyes, one might think she’d crawled right out of a grave. Maybe she had- Barb didn’t know her story. A soft “hm” reverberated in her throat as she took a quick seat, swiping her tongue over her lips and observing the newcomer closely while Dantalion spoke. The heat was pretty bad, yeah, she agreed, but now that she possessed ice powers, she could lower the temperature of the air surrounding her if she tried hard enough. She could hardly remember how hellish it had been before, though she could remember being pretty pissy about it. “Barbara Fawkes,” she introduced finally, “Queen of the Sanguine Ruins. Welcome to the clan, hun.” New members were always good, especially after how desd last week had been.

hm, well if one wanted to get in on appearance points alone, this one would likely fit the bill - the bedraggled, dragged through a hedge backwards look wasn't something he saw everyday - at least not on anything living

Fenris sniffed, idly trailing in the group's shadow, ice blue eyes watching the stranger with equal suspicion and slight derision for her outward appearance but he hid the latter well enough - time would tell whether this one would stay or fade away as another useless mouth to feed that was gone the week after next.